Facebook Profiles Tell Your Mental State

Researchers have found that human mental state can be assessed by the person’s Facebook profile.

Researchers have found that human mental state can be assessed by the person’s Facebook profile.

The mental illness that might elude psychiatrists might instead be found using the patients' Facebook profile. Facebook being a social networking site and a way for people to interact with friends, guards are generally lower. Also people often post things on Facebook which they may not be comfortable revealing to a complete stranger like a psychiatrist. Elizabeth Martin who’s pursuing her doctoral in psychology from the University of Missouri has stated that looking through a person’s Facebook profile is more likely to reveal facts about the person’s behaviour than initial sessions at a psychiatrists'.

Martin and team set up an experiment where over 200 college students were asked to fill questionnaires where they had to respond to questions on personal habits, likes and dislikes. They were also asked to log into their Facebook accounts and parts of the profile were blocked from re-searchers. However, viewing students’ activities on facebook, psychologists could ascertain their behaviour more accurately. Also, blocked parts gave information about the mental state and extrovert quotient of students.